


Katherine Kavanaugh, Ace Reporter

by Tuesday_Next



Category: 50 Shades of Grey - E. L. James
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crime, F/M, POV Female Character, Rape, Rescue, Stalking, Thriller, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-25 07:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tuesday_Next/pseuds/Tuesday_Next
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kate Kavanaugh sent her best friend Ana to interview enigmatic businessman Christian Grey, she had no idea that he was a dangerous predator, or that Ana would fall victim to him.  When she begins to notice the signs that Grey is abusing her friend, Kate must uncover the truth about Grey and save her friend before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fifty Shades of Grey Sporking](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/15592) by GEHAYI and KET MAKURA. 



> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Rape, Characters attempting to rationalize rape and abuse, intimate partner abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, victim blaming, violence, possible death.
> 
> This is a reworking of _Fifty Shades of Grey_ , told from the perspective of Kate, Ana's best friend. This fic deals frankly with the issues of rape and abuse which pervade the original work. I wrote this work after Gehayi and Ket Mahura's sporking of _Fifty Shades_ , where they suggested that Christian Grey would make a better antagonist than romantic lead. I do not have to change the details of Ana and Christian's relationship to do this; there are plenty of depictions of rape and abuse in the books themselves.

Everyone has a secret. I was going to find out Christian Grey's. 

I'd done a lot of research on the enigmatic billionaire, but so far the closest I'd come to a revelation of his sordid story were tantalizing hints of a deprived childhood prior to his adoption by a wealthy couple at age four. I was certain that he was hiding more shocking secrets—why else would he keep even the mundane details of his company and his own life so secret?

What little information I had managed to dig up on Grey by combing the internet painted a mysterious and somewhat alarming picture. He had never been seen in public with a girlfriend, or a boyfriend for that matter, even though he often attended public functions where it was normal to bring a date. He kept strict control over his own company, to the point where he had refused to appoint a board of directors, which seemed a terrible business choice to me. He almost never gave interviews or made public statements about himself.

That was why I was so excited to have finally scored an interview with him. It had taken me months of calling his company's PR department, being shuffled from one underling to another, left on endless hold, and listening to his employees' noncommittal replies of “Mr. Grey is very busy this month, perhaps if you called back later?” Despite the obvious way they were trying to give me the runaround, I kept calling, even going so far as to tell them I was writing an article about Grey for the _VanCouger Newspaper_ whether he talked to me or not, so if he wanted to have any control over the article at all, he'd better agree to speak with me.

After all that work, after finally getting the man to agree to sit down and talk to me, of course I had to come down with the flu. It was the worst timing in the world. I knew that if I called to cancel now, I would have to go through the same ridiculous thing I had before, and there was no way I would be able to reschedule the interview for anytime soon. Since I was graduating in a few weeks, I couldn't exactly wait around forever.

After I tried calling, emailing and texting every other student on the newspaper, only to be told they were all too busy with writing papers and preparing for finals, I finally had to ask my roommate, Ana, to interview Grey in my stead. Now, Ana was my best friend and I loved her, but she wasn't exactly the most worldly person I knew. She loved Victorian novels, and sometimes I thought she was under the impression she was living in one. She was scandalized by even the mention of sex—no matter how many times I tried to take her to a performance of The Vagina Monologues, or out to a bar to pick up guys, or even down to Health Services to get a basic exam, she continued to act as if she didn't even know where babies came from, and anyone who did was a ruined woman.

Maybe I was being to harsh on her. Ana was great at understanding the lives and motivations of characters in her novels, but not so good at understanding the real world around her. I knew she had kind of a tumultuous childhood, constantly moving around and dealing with her mother's new husbands, and books were her only constant. I could certainly understand that, as I loved books myself—in fact, we had first bonded over a mutual love of _Jane Eyre_ during a freshman seminar. The problem was Ana sometimes acted as if books were more real to her than reality.

I was worried that Ana, who had no background in journalism and could be a bit socially awkward, would make a bad impression on Mr. Grey, but what choice did I have? If I didn't get that article written now, I would graduate before I could publish it.

I gave her my list of questions, trusting that she would look them over and do any research if she needed to. It was pretty straightforward, anyway—I had written down basic questions, planning to pursue anything interesting he said with follow-ups. As it was, I would just have to write my article with whatever Ana got out of him, and it seemed unlikely I would manage to craft an expose out of his answers to the list of questions. Well, it was better than nothing.

I gave her my list of questions and my digital recorder and thanked Ana again for helping me out. She left, and I settled in with some NyQuil and hot soup to wait for her to return.


	2. Questions

I started to feel a little more alive after the hot soup, so I got out my books and started studying while I waited for Ana to return. Ana was a little later than I expected, but before I could start to worry I heard her key turning in the door. She came in, holding my digital recorder. 

“Ana, you're back!” I said. I would have gotten up and hugged her, but I didn't want her to catch my flu. I thanked her for doing me this favor and asked her how the interview went and what Grey was like.

Ana looked unsettled, in a way I'd never seen her look before. “I'm glad it's over and I don't have to see him again. He was rather intimidating, you know.” Ana shrugged, as if she was trying to dismiss her own instincts. “He's very focused, intense even, and young. Really young.”

There was something she wasn't telling me. If Ana had been anyone else, I might have thought she was attracted to the man. But Ana had never showed any attraction to anyone—at least, anyone who wasn't a character in her novels. Besides, “intimidating” isn't the word you use to describe a guy you want to hook up with, and she'd said she was glad she didn't have to see him again. 

“Don't you look so innocent,” Ana went on. “Why didn't you give me a biography? He made me feel like such an idiot for skimping on basic research.” 

I put my hand over my mouth. “Shit, Ana, I'm sorry.” In truth, I had assumed she would look him up on Wikipedia like anyone else, forgetting for a moment that Ana doesn't like to use computers. The way she described him bothered me, though. Surely he hadn't meant to make Ana feel foolish? I knew that someone like Grey could easily put people at ease—if he wanted to.

Ana didn't give up any more information about Grey, just that he was very polite and seemed older than he was. She went off to her job at the hardware store, and I got out my laptop and started the recording.

“Do you mind if I record your answers?” Ana began the interview. Her voice sounded hesitent, even shaken. I wished I could have seen what happened before the recording started.

“After you've taken so much trouble to set up the recorder, you ask me know?” Grey said. “No, I don't mind.”

The words were teasing, but the tone wasn't. At least now I knew why Ana had sounded so hesitant before. She probably had trouble with the recorder. I should have shown her how to use it.

“Did Kate, I mean Miss Kavanaugh, explain what the interview was for?”

“Yes. To appear in the graduation issue of the student newspaper as I shall be conferring the degrees at this year's graduation ceremony.”

Wow, Ana was right. This guy does sound stuffy and formal. Who says “shall” in the twenty-first century?

“Good. I have some question, Mr. Grey.”

“I thought you might.” Grey said. He sounded like he was laughing at her, and I felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Ana. 

“You're very young to have amassed such an empire. To what do you owe your success?”

“Business is all about people, Miss Steele, and I'm very good at judging people. I know how they tick, what makes them flourish, what doesn't, what inspires them, and how to incentivize them. I employ an exceptional team, and I reward them well. My belief is to achieve success in any scheme one has to make oneself master of that scheme, know it inside an out, know every detail. I work hard, very hard to to that. I make decision based on logic and facts. I have a natural gut instinct that can nurture a good solid idea and good people. The bottom line is it's always down to good people.”

Wow. I had to pause the recorder, I was so amazed at this steaming pile of bullshit. Where to even begin? First this guy claimed that the key to his business was his employees, but then he says he micromanages them? I might not be a business major, but I knew there was no way a man in charge of a company that employed thousands of people could know every detail. And employees certainly don't flourish when the boss is looking over their shoulder; they flourish when he trusts them enough to delegate. Then he says he makes decision based on logic and facts—and contradicts that in the next sentence when he talks about his gut instinct. Not to mention using “incentive” as a verb, which is a crime against the English language.

I rewound the recorder and listened to this corporate doublespeak word vomit again, but it didn't make any more sense the second time. I let the recording continue to play.

“Maybe you're just lucky,” Ana said.

I blink in mild surprise. Go Ana! That wasn't on my list, but it's a good follow-up, especially since Grey didn't give a good answer to the original question.

“I don't subscribe to luck or chance, Miss Steele. The harder I work the more luck I seem to have. It's all about having the right people on your team and directing their energies accordingly. I think it was Harvey Firestone who said, 'The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.'”

More bullshit. Lovely. This guy doesn't subscribe to luck or chance? He got the biggest lucky break of his life when he was adopted by the Greys. Does he honestly think he would have been able to build his company without the opportunities and connections they gave him? Does he think that poor people don't work just as hard as he does, for far less reward? What about these fantastic employees he keeps boasting about finding? Surely they work hard, yet they don't own the company.

“You sound like a control freak,” Ana went on.

I was impressed. Ana was on fire here. She hit it right on the head—he did sound like a massive control freak. She wasn't usually this bold. I liked this side of her.

“Oh, I exercise control in all things, Miss Steele. Besides, immense power is aquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control things.”

What the fuck? He was hitting on her? His tone of voice was incredibly creepy, not to mention there were some disturbing implications in there. Of course, the double entendre flew right over Ana's head.

“Do you feel you have immense power?” Ana asked.

“I employ over forty thousand people, Miss Steele,” Grey said. “That gives me a certain sense of responisbility—power, if you will. If I were to decide I was not longer interested in the telecommunications business and sell, twenty thousand people would strugge to make their mortgage payments in a month or so.”

This guy was on a major power trip. What a disgusting thing to say, as if he got off thinking about his power to ruin so many people's lives.

“Don't you have a board to answer to?”

I had been wondering that, too. Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. was a corporation, which meant it was legally supposed to have a Board of Directors. I had looked it up online; even if the company was privately owned, he still needed to have a board. Yet I had never been able to find any mention of one. 

“I own my own company. I don't have to answer to a board.”

That was a blatant lie, and I couldn't think of any reason for it. Did Grey not know how his own company worked? That seemed unlikely. Maybe he was just trying to impress Ana with his power.

“And do you have any interests outside your work?” Damn, I had been hoping that Ana would follow up about the Board of Directors mystery. But she sounded embarrassed, so she had probably just believed Grey's lie and thought the whole thing was her fault. I should have briefed her better.

“I have varied interests, Miss Steele. Very varied.” Yeah, he was definitely hitting on her. 

“But if you work so hard, what do you do to chill out?” Once again, Ana completely missed the innuendo.

“Chill out? Well, to chill out, as you put it, I sail, I fly, I engage in various physical pursuits. I'm a very wealthy man, Miss Steele, and I have expensive and absorbing hobbies.” This guy still sounded like a total jerk, but I jotted down his reply anyway. He clearly had an ego the size of Washington state. Did every word he said have to be about how powerful he was? I mean, my parents had money, but we didn't go around boasting about it—that would be incredibly rude.

“You invest in manufacturing? Why, specifically?” That was a good question. After the financial crisis, the manufacturing sector wasn't exactly booming, but Grey hadn't really changed his investment strategy. I wanted to know why.

“I like to build things. I like to know how things work: what makes things tick, how to construct and deconstruct. And I have a love of ships? What can I say?” Well, I thought as I wrote this down, you could say something that actually explains why you invest in manufacturing. If you like building things, why not get a set of legos, or build your own boat? How does putting a lot of money in a sector that isn't producing very profitable returns have anything to do with your liking to build things? It's not like they let the investors do the manufacturing themselves.

“That sounds like your heart talking, rather than logic and facts,” Ana said. She had a good point. For a guy who touted reason, Grey seemed to make a lot of decisions based on instinct or emotion. Personally, I thought his apparent obsession with building and destroying things was a result of his egomania, not his heart, but maybe Ana was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“Possibly. Though there are people who'd say I don't have a heart.” I rolled my eyes. Seriously? Who did this guy think he was, Lex Luthor?

“Why would they say that?”

“Because they know me well.”

“Would you're friends say you're easy to get to know?”

“I'm a very private person, Miss Steele. I go a long way to protect my privacy. I don't often give interviews.” Well, that was true enough, considering how long it had taken to get the man to agree to a simple question and answer.

“Why did you agree to this one?”

“Because I'm a benefactor of the university, and for all intents and purposes, I couldn't get his Kavanaugh off my back. She badgered and badgered my PR people, and I admire that kind of tenacity.” Well, that was true enough. I had been rather...persistant.

“You also invest in farming technologies. Why are you interested in that area?”

“We can't eat money, Miss Steele, and there are too many people on this planet who don't have enough to eat.”

“That sounds very philanthropic. Is it something you feel passionately about? Feeding the world's poor?”

“It's shrewd business,” he said, softly enough that I had to replay it to be sure I'd heard him correctly. That didn't sound right. Shrewd business? It was true that Grey Holdings Enterprises Inc (and what a ridiculous name that was) kept its farming technology breakthroughs proprietary, insteading of releasing them to the public as a truly philanthropic organization would do. I didn't think he made much profit off them though, if any. Judging by his earlier comment about his employees depending on him for money to pay their mortgages, I thought it was another power thing. He liked having millions of starving people in developing countries depending on him, and only him, for their food. The thought made me feel sick.

I restarted the tape. “Do you have a philosophy? If so, what is it?”

“I don't have a philosophy as such. Maybe a guiding principle—Carnegie's: 'A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind make take anything else to which he is justly entitled.' I'm very singular, driven. I like control—of myself and those around me.”

That, at least, fit in with what I'd heard of him before. He was a total control freak. He might pay lip service to the his great employees, but the truth was he liked to micromanage every inch of his company, which wasn't the action of a man who trusted his employees.

“So you want to possess things?” Ana asked.

“I want to deserve to possess them, but yes, bottom line, I do.” 

I paused the recording. There was something about his tone that was seriously creeping me out, though I couldn't put my finger on what exactly it was. Maybe it was just the imperfect quality of the recording, but when I put this comment together with his earlier comment about liking to control the people around him, it painted a somewhat alarming picture. I drummed my fingers against the keyboard for a moment, frowning, before I started the playback again.

“You sound like the ultimate consumer.”

“I am,” Grey said.

“You were adopted. How much do you think that's shaped the way you are?”

“I have no way of knowing.” 

Interesting. He was dodging the question. While it was true that Grey had no reasonable way of knowing what kind of person he'd be if he hadn't been adopted, he had answered plenty of earlier questions with banal platitudes. The fact that he hadn't come out with some bullshit about appreciating the people he was close to more, or having more drive because of his difficult early childhood, was like a big flashing sign to me: he was hiding something.

“How old were you when you were adopted?” Ana asked.

“That's a matter of public record, Miss Steele.” He had mentioned once, in an obscure interview I'd dug up, that he'd been four when he was adopted. The adoption files themselves were sealed (I'd checked) so saying that it was public record was a bit disingenous. Grey almost never talked about his adoption.

“You've had to sacrifice family life for your work.”

“That's not a question, Miss Steele.”

“Sorry. Have you had to sacrifice family life for your work?”

“I have a family. I have a brother and a sister and two loving parents. I'm not interested in extending my family beyond that.” 

Okay, that was a little weird. I get that some guys aren't interested in commitment, but I'd met very few people who were willing to completely rule out the idea of marriage and children. Most men I knew, even if they were playing the field now, wouldn't react so vehemently against the idea of ever having a family of their own. Maybe there was some personal reason for that? He thought he wouldn't make a good parent, he didn't want to recreate whatever mistakes his biological parents had made?

“Are you gay, Mr. Grey.”

I heard him inhale sharply. “No, Anastasia, I'm not.” His voice sounded sharp and unhappy. I wasn't sure if he was lying or not. Either way, he was definitely offended. I knew some guys could be touchy about that, but it was a perfectly legitimate question, especially about a man who had never been seen in public with a female companion. That he was so touchy suggested Ana had hit a nerve. Either he was gay, or he was homophobic.

“I apologize. It's, um, written here,” Ana said. She sounded embarrassed, and I wished I had been there to tell her she had nothing to be ashamed of. If Grey had a problem with homosexuality, that was his problem, not hers.

“These aren't your own questions?”

“Er, no. Kate—Miss Kavanaugh—she compiled the questions.” Ana sounded like she was floundering. I was seriously regretting sending her to do the interview. She just hadn't been trained for this sort of thing.

“Are you colleagues on the student paper.”

“No. She's my roommate.”

“Did you volunteer to do this interview?”

“I was drafted. She's not well.” 

Drafted? That's not how I would characterize it. I had just asked Ana to do the interview, and she had agreed. If she'd felt coerced or obligated, she hadn't said anything about it to me.

“That explains a great deal,” Grey said. I wanted to slap his smug face. I could just picture him, enjoying Ana's embarrassment, making both of us look like idiots.

I heard someone knock on Grey's office door, and an unfamiliar female voice interrupted the interview. “Mr. Grey, forgive me for interupting, but your next meeting is in two minutes.”

“We're not finished here, Andrea. Please cancel my next meeting.

“Very well, Mr. Grey.”

I frowned. Grey had been so reluctant to do the interview in the first place, and now it was going badly. Why hadn't he taken the chance to cut it short?

“Where were we, Miss Steele?”

“Please, don't let me keep you from anything.” I wasn't sure, but I thought Ana wasn't just being polite. She wanted to get out of there. 

“I want to know about you. I think that's only fair.” What? Ana was interviewing him, not the other way around. I had had interviewees try this trick more than once in my student journalism career, and I had learned to gracefully redirect the conversation to them. Ana hadn't.

“There's not much to know,” she said.

“What are your plans after you graduate?”

“I haven't made any plans, Mr. Grey. I just need to get through my final exams.” 

I knew this already, because Ana and I had discussed the future more than once. I had an internship lined up with the Seattle Times, and I hoped I would be able to turn it into a full-time job. Ana refused to make any plans. I thought that was a terrible idea in this economy, but what could I do? She was an adult.

“We run an excellent internship program here,” Grey said. I frowned. What was he doing? Just a pro forma mention of the program, or did he actually want her to work there? Ana didn't seem like she had made the best first impression, which raised the question of why he actually wanted her there.

“Oh. I'll bear that in mind. Though I'm not sure I'd fit in here.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It's obvious, isn't it?”

“Not to me.”

“Would you like me to show you around?”

“I'm sure you're far too busy, Mr. Grey, and I do have a long drive.”

“You're driving back to Vancouver? Well, you'd better drive carefully.”

“Yes, sir,” Ana said, and the recording cut off.


End file.
